Not mine, not a chance. Where do the gardens in magazines come from? Perfect plants with spotless leaves with amazing plant combinations spaced just right. If I photograph anything more than a closeup of a flower there are leaves torn to shreds, holes from black spot or slugs, yellowing, brown, and broken. Plants are crammed into impossibly small…
Month: July 2009
The dog days of July
The new hound in the neighborhood came to visit Sunday, foraging through the garage for tasty treasures, skittering away when I opened the door on my way to the garden. His small, fur ball companion lingered to yap a bit, then scurried back to the calls of the neighbor. Down the path to the rear…
Beat the heat
I’ve returned from two weeks on the road for business. The garden seems to have survived, though barely a drop of rain has fallen in the three weeks of July. While other parts of the country swelter in extreme heat, thus far my northern Virginia garden has experienced moderate temperatures and low humidity (at least…
Screening plants – holly
Leyland cypress and Green Giant arborvitae are the standards when many people consider plants for screening. Both are attractive and very fast growing, but their mature size may overwhelm many properties. Often, a slower growing evergreen that grows to nearly twenty feet tall is more appropriate. Upright hollies are wonderful plants for this situation. Their…
How does my garden grow?
Disorder abounds! If an area of the garden should seem too mannerly, too structured, there must be room for a dozen more plants. Or more. In my garden, not yours. Certainly you have more sense than to plant so that one neighbor tumbles over the other, that perennials requiring sun are shaded because some ignoramus…
Way down South
For the next two weeks I’ll be touring tree and shrub growing nurseries throughout the Southeast, an annual pilgrimage for thirty years. I’ll be driving, almost three thousand miles over twelve days, and a different town each night, except for two nights in Mobile, Alabama over the weekend. My traveling partner and I will be…
Summertime, and the living is easy
Thank goodness, most garden chores are done. Now’s the time to sit back and relax. This has been a wonderful Spring for the garden with an abundance of rain and cloudy, cool weather. Oh, we’ll complain that we haven’t seen the sun in weeks, or that it was too muddy for this and that, but plants are…
Ramblin' through Dave's Garden 